1. "Ghosts of the Dead and Famous" Have students select one famous Ohioan from Haunted Ohio: Ghostly Tales of the Buckeye State or Haunted Ohio V: 200 Years of Ghosts (which have the most Ohio history in them) and write a biography. See if they can find any other ghostly tales about that person.

2. "Ask the Ghosthunter" After reading "An Interview with Chris Woodyard," have students e-mail me questions at Invisiblei@aol.com. I’ll be happy to answer them. Please note: I won’t be available to do this in October and it would be best to arrange for it in advance.
3. "Grave Matters" Visit a graveyard—the older, the better—and, after asking permission, make rubbings of the tombstones. What can you tell about that person from their tombstone? What do the symbols on the tombstone mean? Have students define 5 or more different types of monuments. Take a survey of the cemetery or a portion of it, counting the total number of each type. Then look at the year of death on those monuments. Are they very close together? Will you be able to date a monument by its type—without looking at the date? Is there one decade most numerous in the graveyard? What is the earliest date to be found? The latest? What does it mean when you have a gravestone with two people’s names on it, but no dates of death?
4. "Folklore Frights" Using Spooky Ohio’s list of superstitions, ask students to collect examples of folk beliefs from their families, particularly beliefs about death, death-omens, and ghosts.
5. "My Ghost Today…" Ask students to practice interviewing each other about ghostly experiences, then see if their grandparents will cooperate in sharing any tales they know. It might even be possible to tape-record some tales or, if a relative is an experienced storyteller, to invite them to school.
6. "Eerie Illustrations" Illustrate or make a comic strip/book of one of the Haunted Ohio stories.
7. "The Ghost with the Most" Hold a ghost story contest. The stories should be each read out loud by the teacher and given "shiver ratings" from 1-5. 1 = "Yawn" 2 = "What was that noise?" 3 = "I think there’s something under my bed" 4 = "Eeek!" 5 = >Dead Faint<
8. "Old Soldiers Never Die" Using the stories in Spooky Ohio on Civil War ghosts, have students research ghost stories of the Civil War. Which battle or battles or events have the most ghost stories associated with them?
9. "Invisible Ink" Have students use library resources to make a bibliography of ghost stories. Stress that they are to use ALL the resources at their disposal, including asking the librarians for suggestions. This involves more than just the card catalog. (See my suggestions for teachers under "How to Find Ghost Stories". The top grades go to the bibliographies with the most items. (You might want to set a limit so they don’t go overboard.)
10. "The Ghost with the Least" Hold a contest in which the object is to write the world’s shortest ghost story. See Spooky Ohio for an example.
11. "Get An Afterlife!" Have students write an essay about what they would do if they came back as a ghost.
12. "Mapping the Macabre" Plot the sites of the stories in the Haunted Ohio or Spooky Ohio books on a map. Create a bar graph that displays the concentration of sites per county.
13. "Boos and Views" If your classroom is ethnically diverse, try to discover what different ethnic groups think about ghosts. I find, for example, that the Germans and the French do not, as a rule, believe in or care much about ghost stories, except as fantasy. African-Americans often believe strongly in ghosts, but are uneasy about discussing tales or experiences outside their family circle. Persons from the UK (English/Irish/Scot/Welsh) are rather matter-of-fact that "yes, of course, there are such things, but we don’t dwell on them."
14. "Happy Haunting Grounds" There are many fine books of Native American tales available (see Bibliography). Bring in a selection, read any that deal with the supernatural. What are Native American views on ghosts and supernatural beings? Do these beliefs differ between nations and tribes?
15. "Boo Review" Have students form groups of 4. Each student should read one book from the bibliography and write a report about such things as "Were these true stories or folklore?" (debate the difference) "Did the author treat the story seriously?" "Did the author write fictional dialogue or add material to a factual story?" Then they should discuss their books, comparing them with the other 3 in their group. The object is to see the many different ways authors deal with ghost stories.
16. "Phantoms of the Opera" Have the class vote on their favorite story from the Haunted Ohio books or from Spooky Ohio. Dramatize that story or make a video tape version of it with sound and light effects.
17. "Spirits of the Past" Choose some stories from Haunted Ohio or Spooky Ohio that are set in the past. What things are different from the way we live now? (for example, methods of transportation, foods, clothing, games, housing) What are the things that are the same today? (for example, peoples’ feelings for their families, hopes and fears, feelings of anger and revenge, love)
18. "Fright Bites" In Haunted Ohio III and Haunted Ohio IV there are sections called "Fright Bites" which contain very short ghostly tales. If any of these stories occur in your area, have students do further research to see if they can come up with any more details.
19. "Ghost-Bus Tour" Each of the Haunted Ohio books contains a list of haunted places that are open to the public. A complete list is included here. These include many places of historic interest. Have students do research on one of the sites near to you, including date of founding or construction, purpose, original owners, significant events, etc. Then plan a field trip to the site.
20. Generate lists of the many different names for "ghost" How many can the students come up with? Do the same for a list of gruesome, scary words.
21. Questions about why ghosts haunt and what they want? Visit "Ask the Ghost Hunter" on the main web site.

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